


Se(r)quel

by TheRaven99



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: (that's Berlín's), A bit angsty sometimes but everyone's an emotional wreck and that's canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa Lives, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Mostly how Berlin would have reacted to the couple, Terminal Illnesses, Tried to be funny, suicide is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRaven99/pseuds/TheRaven99
Summary: Berlin never died. Sergio never told him about Raquel. One year later, Raquel finds his way to him. One-shot.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Palermo | Martín Berrote, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 32
Kudos: 133





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueTulips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueTulips/gifts).



They had done it. They had gotten out. Not in one piece, certainly, but they had gotten out. Denver had lost a family and found another one. Helsinki and Nairobi had done something similar, except all they had found was each other and a lot of money, which wasn't exactly good enough, but it was something. A fresh start, now. All of them had lost things, mostly people, and found other things, mostly people. And money. 

The Professor had found and lost the same thing. He tried not to think about it, not where everyone else could see him. So he sang, and laughed, and hugged all of them when their ways parted. He was left with his brother, the only family he had left now. Left with a brother and a clock that counted the hours until he was gone. 

So he didn't tell him about Raquel. He told himself he had to make whatever time they had left worth it. They got a nice house on the beach in Palawan, and if that was a tribute to his broken heart... well, that was his problem to deal with. 

Andrés de Fonollosa was many things, but he wasn't an idiot. Well, yes, he was also an idiot, he just didn't notice. Just not enough of an idiot to not notice how his brother would leave the house quietly at night when he thought he was already asleep after a long day having fun together, not enough of an idiot not to notice how some smiles were too wide and too bright and didn't quite reach his eyes, like he was far away. But he never asked.   
He knew the answer anyway, didn't he? His hands shook harder in those moments, and he tried to hide them too, like his brother hid his sadness from him. It was a careful dance, both trying to enjoy the time they had left and not make the other hurt more with their own worries. Sergio had already lost his mother, and his father, and now he was leaving him too. He'd been planning on leaving him when he entered the Mint. He had been ready to die fighting, die a hero, like his father before him. He hadn't planned to let his brother see him grow weaker. He hadn't thought he'd live this long, and now he was afraid. He didn't want his brother to remember him as a sick man.  
So he laughed harder, and he burned brighter than he had ever done, and he didn't say anything when Sergio went for walks at the beach at night or when his face was puffed like he'd been crying. He was indispensable in his brother's life, the last important person in his life, and he was living too. He had a right to grieve.

He would have been in for a shocker if he had. Sergio was just lovesick. He did feel bad about his brother's sickness, but truth be told, he had accepted it, and he was already doing the only thing he could to make sure his life was the best possible. There was nothing else he could do.   
It was the possibilities he had lost when he lost Raquel that were tearing him apart, really. It wasn't the loss per se. It was whenever he tasted a new dish and his first thought was that she would've liked it, and his eyes teared up because he'd never know and he said it was spicy as an excuse. He wondered if she ever thought about him. And if she did, whether he was _the jerk who ruined her career_ or _the man she loved_.

He would sit for hours at the same bar, at the coordinates he had left her on the postcards, imagining that she came, what she would say. What he would answer. He played a thousand conversations in his mind, and then let them go as the night came, another day where he went home empty.  
Andrés thought he had a drinking problem, and didn't know how to address it. 

Sergio had fallen like an idiot, really, he had thrown himself off a cliff without looking down, hoping Raquel would catch him, and she hadn't, and he had never quite reached the bottom, not really. He was still falling. There was always still a bit of hope, just a bit more until the bottom. He wondered how his brother kept having relationships one after another when he still hadn't gotten over his first love.   
He had had relationships Before Raquel. It was just that it was not the same, not really. It was like understanding all the songs and the poems and at the same time knowing they were just bullshit, that the real thing was so much more intense and so much more _powerful_. He never told Andrés, at first because he didn't want to worry him with his broken heart, and because he didn't want Andrés to tell him he just needed to get laid and have fun and he'd get over it, he'd find someone new, and then because it was something intimate and true, and it felt almost good to keep it to himself, like a small treasure.  
Andrés decided it was time to stage an intervention when he heard Sergio come in again after midnight. He tried to keep him busy, to make it so he didn't spend most of his days at the bar, and then he started going too, but Sergio never drank much when Andrés was with him. Which was good, really, it was just that he had hoped to see him drink too much and have an excuse to lecture him, tell him he needed help, and that wasn't happening. 

And then, one day, as Andrés chatted up a girl, keeping an eye on Sergio like he wasn't doing it, he saw Raquel approach the bartender, and ask for a charger, and Sergio say she could use his phone.   
He wondered how the hell was his brother so stupid, what was he doing, how had she found them-  
They were kissing. It was like a romantic movie, the golden sunlight shining on their skins, the way she looked at him and smiled, the way he smiled back, how he got up and kissed her.  
As someone who appreciated art, he could see the beauty of their story, the detective who falls in love with the criminal, the wolf falling in love with the sheep (he wasn't sure which was which), the loss, finding each other again.  
As a wanted criminal, he wondered what the fuck was his brother thinking. They weren't just kissing, he was leading her to their house, and Andrés was just left in the bar with his mouth hanging open, the woman he'd been chatting up demanding his attention.  
He left her there and went after his brother. He regretted it almost immediately when he got home and saw them on the couch. Andrés de Fonollosa wasn't exactly bothered by sex. He was, however, bothered by his brother fucking the enemy on their sofa. 

"You really took 'fuck the police' literally, didn't you? Not that I have a problem with it, she's lovely and all, but does it have to be _on the couch_?" He asked, trying to keep a calm smile, hiding his hands behind his back, like he wasn't completely baffled.  
They had the decency to be startled, and Raquel got quickly off Sergio, covering herself with his shirt, looking at him with wide eyes.  
"What is Berlín doing here?!"   
"Oh, right, uh, he's my brother," Sergio explained sheepishly, sitting up and grabbing the closest item of clothing to get dressed.   
"He's what?"   
"So this was it? You were going to that bar every day, waiting for her? I thought you had a drinking problem!" Andrés questioned as understanding dawned on him.   
"You what?" Sergio and Raquel asked in unison.   
"And you just told the police where we were hiding? I mean yes, very romantic, but what the actual fuck, Sergio?!" Andrés was upset. He didn't usually shout or lose his composure like that, and it wasn't exactly because Raquel was a part of the police, no.  
Sergio had been sulking in secret for a year, not because he was sad about the idea of losing him, but because his girlfriend wasn't with him?

"We're in love! She wouldn't tell the police where I am!"

He wanted to accuse him, tell him he had broken his own rules, but really, nobody had quite followed them. And he didn't want to be reminded of Ariadna. Berlín was an idiot, but he wasn't absolutely stupid, and if Raquel had come to catch them she probably wouldn't be half-naked on their couch.   
"Well, we can discuss this with some tea," suggested Andrés, plastering a pleasing smile on his face, which was just meant to make them as confused as he was, and then went to the kitchen, allowing them to get properly dressed.  
"Sergio-"  
"I'm sorry, I didn't think he'd come home, I wasn't thinking, I was just so glad to see you-"  
"Sergio."  
"But he's taking it well and he's not that bad, really, he's my brother-" he continued, buttoning his shirt.  
"Sergio!"  
"What?" He looked at her with his best puppy face, which to be fair was pretty good, like he was scared that she'd just get up and leave and he wouldn't see her again.  
"You... you're wearing my panties."

* * *

Andrés eventually came back with the tea, and found them dressed and whispering with their faces close. They sat with him, and drank their tea, and Andrés asked for their story. It was a nice story, like out of a movie. His artistic brain told him it was perfect, but his functional brain told him his brother was absolutely bonkers. But then, he'd always been the idealistic type, hadn't he? And it had just worked out. Well, it hadn't worked out yet, they had just found each other, but honestly, even that was quite a feat. 

He was completely convinced that she wasn't going to betray them when she brought in her family. Just a couple days later. She actually brought her mother and daughter. She wouldn't risk them getting hurt in a shooting. So he greeted them with his usual smile, and he took to putting his hands in his pockets and being his most charming self. He acted like he wanted to be remembered, as just a bit of a bastard, but a charming one. Raquel didn't trust him, which wasn't really shocking, but he did his best. He told fantastic stories to Paula, and didn't inject himself where they could see him, and took her to school and kept an eye on Mariví when the lovebirds wanted time for themselves, so he was accepted, at least.

It took only about four months until he approached Raquel on his own for the first time. They didn't really spend time together, not alone at least. So it did come as a surprise when he approached her, and took his hands from his pockets, and asked her to inject him with his medicine.

"What? Why me?" She asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Because my hands are shaking. I'm dying, remember?" He asked with a smile, like it was no big deal. He had already lasted longer than he expected, but despite doing daily exercises to compensate for the weakening of his muscles, he didn't trust himself not to break the needle inside himself with his shaking hand.

"I know that, I meant why me specifically. Shouldn't you be asking Sergio? I mean, you can pretend however much you want, I don't think you just decided to trust me overnight because we're dating," she replied. She wasn't wrong.

"You're good. I didn't expect less from the woman who almost got all of us caught, of course." He said it without animosity. She had been doing her job, and doing your job right was something to be celebrated. "I don't want him to do it. I don't want him to be constantly reminded that I'm sick. You should want him to be happy, right?" He offered her a tiny bottle and the syringe, which she took from his shaking hands. "I've always been his hero, and nobody likes seeing their heroes weak and scared, not really. Not as an absolute. It's always just a stepping stone to them evolving, getting better. And I'm not getting better. I know you don't like me, and I don't blame you. But I don't want my brother to remember me like this."

Andrés smiled, offering her his hands, palms up. 

"I want him to remember me like I was, a charming gentleman -" Raquel scoffed at the notion, "not a bucket with a hole that is slowly emptying. Not a shadow. Can you blame me for that?"

She injected the liquid into his hands.

"Don't think it's because I like you. This is for Sergio. And for my sex life. At least I know you can keep an eye on Mariví and Paula when we're... busy."

"Yes, of course. As long as you keep your sex life away from the couch. And the kitchen. And the tables." He listed the spots where he had found them making out or doing more than making out at some point. "Tell me, does Sergio usually wear your underwear, or is that just on special occasions?"

Raquel was already regretting everything.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrés adapting to the Murillo family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, later than I promised but behold, an update? There's like mentions of Berlín/Palermo and also Andrés is basically being a very good in-law and making his brother insecure.

It had been around a week or two after the lovers had reunited. Raquel had stated that she wanted to bring her family with them, and Sergio had immediately agreed. Andrés had tried to avoid it by saying they didn't have enough space in the house.

Sergio had bought a bigger one. 

And soon enough, the rest of the Murillo family was outside their door with their luggage. Sergio greeted them happily, and then they looked at Andrés, who was right behind him, wearing light clothes partly because it was hot, and partly because he wanted to be literally dazzling. He approached them with a wide smile and introduced himself:

"My name is Andrés, I'm Sergio's brother. I'm the handsome one," he said playfully, winking at Mariví as he kissed her hand. "It's strange, Raquel said her mother and daughter were coming, but you must be her sister," he added, his smile almost as blinding as the sun reflected on his white shirt.

"Is... is your brother flirting with my mother?" Raquel asked Sergio with a mixture of horror and confusion. 

"He's always like that," he muttered hopelessly, covering his face with one hand in shame, even though Mariví seemed certainly happy with the charming man who was now also greeting Paula.

"I see the beauty runs in the family. But please, don't stay out here! Let us proceed, now, to your new home!" Andrés opened his arms dramatically, inviting them into the house and grabbing their things. "Go inside, you surely have a lot to catch up on, I'll go make some tea and join you later!" He carried their luggage into their rooms and then went into the kitchen, making tea for all of them (except Paula, she deserved hot chocolate) and setting up the table in the terrace.

Sergio was the first one to join him, just as Andrés played a soft jazz vinyl that he had brought with him. He smiled and moved his hips gently with the music, as elegant as a reed swaying in the breeze, while his brother just stayed upright like a librarian with a stick up his ass (which was his usual way of standing). Andrés loved drawing parallels between himself and his brother, although they were so different that it felt more like drawing perpendiculars instead. His brother was an idealist, he was a realist. His brother was socially awkward, he was the charming gentleman. He was elegant, his brother was as graceful as a sack of potatoes. 

"Andrés." He stopped moving and looked at him, his smile unfaltering. "Mariví has... memory problems. We'll try to keep an eye on her, but, well, we can't monitor her all the time and we'd appreciate it if you could-"

"Keep her company so you can have a sex life? Oh, don't look at me like that, you're a new couple, it's important that you take time to connect at an intimate level." He waved his hand and then put his arm around his shoulders, guiding him into his seat just as the Murillo family came into the terrace.

Andrés was an actor, and life was his theater. So he played his part as the perfect brother-in-law for Raquel, even though she wasn't married to his brother. They couldn't bring Paula to a normal school, so she was home-schooled, mostly by Sergio and Raquel themselves, but Andrés had spent countless hours in the same room as an engineer, and a brilliant one at that, and he had inquired about the equations that filled the blackboard at the monastery, and so had learned quite a bit of physics and mathematics, but also how to explain them in a soft voice and with just the right amount of enthusiasm. It wasn't much when your pupil's mathematical level was between "adding fractions" and "solving linear equations", but at least he always had an answer ready for "why do I have to learn this?", and he took great pride in answering each time, always grandiloquent, always building up from whatever she asked about to the fun stuff. He liked to paint it like a tower: you had to make a good foundation before building on top of it or the whole thing would just fall apart, but that didn't mean you couldn't get to look at the blueprint for the whole tower before it was done. 

He would make savory dishes with whatever they had, he asked the locals for recipes and wouldn't allow anyone else into the kitchen with him because he didn't want them to see how he would keep everything close to the counter in case his hands failed, because he didn't want them to unconsciously reach to steady them when they trembled. So he cooked alone, exercising his hands with pots and pans and spices, and scoffed at Sergio when he offered to help, and took delight on seeing Raquel's face when she saw her daughter eat vegetables without a complaint and call him 'tío Andrés' or just 'tito' even before she ever considered calling Sergio 'papá'.

At night, he often helped her persuade Raquel to let them go outside, and he would sit outside with her and point at the stars and tell her stories about the planets and constellations, and he taught her how to read a planisphere and how to find Polaris in the night sky just for fun and to see the face they made when they all were outside one night and she pointed at the sky and said "look, North is that way! That's the North star!" 

He didn't tell her how he had learned all those things about the night sky or the laws that governed the movement of all objects in the world, didn't talk much about his past with her. If she ever asked, he'd just distract her by making up stories or singing something. He had a wonderful voice and he knew how to use it.

He did most of those things just to watch how Raquel became more and more frustrated with him being an absolutely perfect angel and not the psychopath she had heard about, but Raquel seemed just happy to have a free babysitter-cook-teacher. 

Giving his attention to a kid who listened to him like he was saying some sacred truth with every word was fun, and it fed his ego, but he found that he liked having tea with Mariví even more. He hadn't thought she was actually worth his time - she wouldn't remember him when he was gone - but then he had realized that  _ she wouldn't remember him when he was gone _ . He could tell her everything, now that his brother barely ever paid him any attention. So he had invited her into the kitchen one day, and told her about his illness, and asked for help for the first time in forever. And she had given it unconditionally. So while Sergio and Raquel spent time together, Andrés milked that time with his newfound family to the last second. He took them to the market, and to the plazas, and insisted that Paula made friends of her age and watched her play with other children with Mariví, and told her softly about his five matrimonies and his subsequent divorces, and the one time he had loved someone enough to let them go instead, he told her that he was really scared of death. She reciprocated, telling him that she was scared of forgetting her daughters, that she kept post-its with everything important, told him about Raquel's father and her childhood in a country that was poor and under a dictatorship, told him about bringing up a child in a country that was just staggering back into its feet after being crushed under someone's boots for years, and Andrés remembered his own mother and regretted never hearing those stories from her mouth, although they would surely be quite different, like two people remembering the same war from different sides. 

His relationship with Raquel was much more and, at the same time, less complicated. Less complicated in the sense that they barely talked outside of those moments when they were all helping Paula with learning things, and more complicated in the sense that he didn't quite know where he stood with her, even after asking her for help. 

He knew he liked her. She made his brother happy, and that was a good enough reason, but she was also witty, and smart, and reliable, and mature. He could see why Sergio loved her and approved their relationship, and he had told that to Sergio, joking that he was really lucky she put up with his immature ass. He hadn't expected Sergio to go back to her that night and blurt it out:

"Andrés said he likes you."

She sat up on her bed, blinking up at him.

"What?"

"We were just talking, he said he thinks you're great and he thinks it's great that we're together? I thought he would be more bothered."

"I didn't expect him to be... nice. It was hard to think of any of you as people during the heist. But the statement he gave the press..."

"Oh, that was mostly bullshit," Sergio interrupted. "He's my brother and I love him, but he's full of shit."

"Is he really, or are you just jealous because he's winning over Paula faster than you?" Raquel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No!" He frowned, then adjusted his glasses. "... Maybe. It's just that everyone seems to like him," he said, ignoring the fact that Nairobi had literally hit Berlín over the head with a gun and mostly everyone else had also thought he was a major asshole. 

"Well, I like you better." And that was the end of the discussion.

Well, not really. Raquel approached Andrés the next day for his daily medicine (right after making sure Mariví took her pills) and sat down with him. 

"So, Andrés de Fonollosa. Who are you?" 

"I'm... Andrés de Fonollosa. Did you hit your head too hard on the headboard last night?" He asked, recalling the thuds against the wall that had kept him up past 2 am. 

Raquel just sighed. 

"You know what I mean. You heard our story, and I'm sure Mariví has told you all sorts of things about our family. But most of what I know about you is what I read in those informs they passed around when I was an inspector. Egocentric, dramatic, sociopath... "

"Well, excuse me for having enormous flaws that I refuse to work on," Berlín joked, and then he smiled. "I am a thief, which I think you already know. I have stolen jewels, art, money, books from libraries, and more kisses than I can remember." Raquel raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. "I am a hopeless romantic, I've been married five times. I am also terrible at relationships, I've been divorced five times." Raquel's eyes seemed to want to escape her face through her hair. "I helped perfection the plan to rob the Mint, which you already know was from Sergio's father. I also planned another heist, a true opera maestra, to the Spanish National Bank with my best friend, but the plan was a disaster."

"Wait, you have a friend? How did that happen? You know a painting of yourself doesn't count as a friend, right?" 

"Of course I know that, and he was a normal person like me."

"Sorry, which one? Was he a normal person or like you?"

Andrés closed his eyes, regretting every life decision that had led him to that conversation.

"He is an engineer. A very good one, at that." He stopped, and for the first time in forever, he closed his mouth. He was an oversharer by nature, but he felt strange remembering the time he had spent with Martín in Palermo. He didn't like feeling like that. "He's also gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide, as some very good writers once said. And a very good kisser, now that I remember it. Very passionate."

Raquel nearly choked on air, but she had been a policewoman and so she could control her reactions. 

"I'm sorry, do you usually want to fuck all your friends?" She asked instead, trying to catch him off guard.

"No. Well- he's the only friend I've ever had. And I wanted to- to break into the Bank of Spain with him, and die by his side like heroes. I wanted to hear him talk about science, and love, and anything he wanted to talk about, until there were no more words hidden in the silence waiting to be spoken and kiss him, and be kissed by him, and... well, yes, I guess I wanted to fuck him too."

Raquel blinked slowly. She hadn't thought he could talk about anyone but himself like that. 

"What happened?" She asked, much more softly. 

"Sergio told me that he was in love with me. I understood then. I was ready to die for our art, but he was willing to die for me. And that's a tragedy. I didn't want that. I didn't want to get out of the Mint alive, not really. I was going to go down fighting for my brother, and I realized if Martín came with me, he would've blown up the whole building if that meant getting me out alive, or he would have died at my side. In the end, I couldn't do it. You know, it takes more courage to live for someone than to die for them, and I chose to live for Sergio, and for Martín. I broke his heart, you know. Told him I was straight. Ha! I'm as straight as a circle, judging by the dreams I keep having about him."

He stood up and straightened his shirt. 

"Well, lovely chat, but that was enough information for one day, don't you think?" He asked abruptly.

"Yeah, I... yeah." Raquel got up, too.

* * *

Later that night, Raquel and Sergio laid in bed next to each other.

"You didn't tell me your brother was in love with that guy from Palermo," she whispered.

"My brother  _ WHAT?!" _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked the idea of Andrés bonding with Raquel over loving Sergio but consider Andrés just blurting out his deepest secrets in front of her then leaving her to deal with the mess.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who got this far for reading! If you have something to say, comments are always appreciated and responded to!
> 
> If you have any ideas/requests for fanfiction with the now extended family (or this fandom generally) you can plop them into the comments or reach me on my Tumblr (username: superwholockwriterspain)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it and thank you again for reading!


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